Political campaigns increasingly rely on Facebook for reaching their constituents, particularly through ad targeting. Facebook’s business model is premised on a promise to connect advertisers with the “right” users: those likely to click, download, engage, purchase. The company pursues this promise by algorithmically inferring users’ interests from their data and providing advertisers with a means of targeting users by their inferred interests. In this study, we explore for whom this interest classification system works in order to build on conversations in (...) critical data studies about the ways such systems produce knowledge about the world rooted in power structures. We critically analyze the classification system from a variety of empirical vantage points—via user data; Facebook documentation, training, and patents; and Facebook’s tools for advertisers—and through theoretical concepts from a variety of domains. In this, we focus on the ways the classification system shapes possibilities for political representation and voice, particularly for people of color, women, and LGBTQ+ people. We argue that this “big data-driven” classification system should be read as political: it articulates a stance not only on what issues are or are not important in the U.S. public sphere, but also on who is considered a significant enough public to be adequately accounted for. (shrink)

"We shall become more Scandinavian." This sentence was pronounced in 2013 by French President François Hollande's entourage.1 It was the starting point for new legislation, notably on transparency, along with a general attempt to diminish the gap between the ruling class and ordinary people. Hollande was seemingly trying to transform "French political culture, a Latin culture, into a Scandinavian culture."2Hollande was not alone in this attempt. During the 2017 presidential campaign, Emmanuel Macron stated that his political project was "exactly like (...) the Scandinavian model," adding that this Scandinavian model "works much better than ours."3 He also pointed out that he saw the "moralization" of public life as one... (shrink)

A virtue account is focused on the character of those who argue. It is frequently assumed, however, that virtues are not action guiding, since they describe how to be and so fail to give us specific actions to take in a sticky situation. In terms of argumentation, we might say that being a charitable arguer is virtuous, but knowing so provides no details about how to argue successfully. To close this gap, I develop a parallel with the thick-thin distinction from (...) ethics and use Hursthouse’s notion of “v-rules”. I also draw heavily from the work in argumentation by Daniel Cohen to develop Wayne Brockriede’s notion of arguing lovingly. But “argue lovingly” has a delicious ambiguity. For Brockriede it describes how we engage with others arguers. It can also mean, however, a loving attachment to knowledge, understanding, and truth. Applying the thick-thin distinction to argumentation in general and loving argumentation in particular shows that a virtue theoretic approach to argumentation is valuable for two reasons: it can provide one articulation of what it means to be a virtuous arguer and provide some insights into how to become one. (shrink)

Through examples of embodied and learning -centered pedagogy, we discuss transformative learning of transgressive topics. We begin with a taxonomy of types of learning our students undergo as they resolve inconsistencies among their pre-existing beliefs and the material they confront in our course on feminist ethics and epistemology. We then discuss ways to help students maximize their learning while confronting internal inconsistencies. While we focus on feminist topics, our approach is broad enough to be relevant to anyone teaching a transgressive (...) or controversial topic. (shrink)

Feminist scholars have long critiqued the fashion industry’s ultra-thin beauty standards as harmful to women. Combining data from three qualitative studies of women’s clothing retailers—of bras, plus-size clothing, and bridal wear—we shift the analytical focus away from glamorized media images toward the seemingly mundane realm of clothing size standards, examining how women encounter, understand, and navigate these standards in their daily lives. We conceptualize clothing size standards as “floating signifiers,” given their lack of consistency within and across brands and the (...) extent to which women engage in identity work and body work in relation to them. Our findings indicate that the instability of these unregulated standards allows some women—particularly those with bodies located closest to the boundaries between size categories—to claim conformity to body ideals and to access some of the associated psychological, social, and material privileges. However, even as individual women may benefit by distancing themselves from stigmatized size categories, this pattern renders women’s body acceptance tenuous while simultaneously reinforcing hierarchies among women based on body size and shape. (shrink)

The literature on drawing provides a justification for using drawing in the teaching of philosophy. The aim of the essay is to show how drawing as a pedagogy, though unusual in philosophy, fulfills high-quality teaching desiderata: make it personal, go beyond the text, allow students to show and explain their work, and unify the work of the course. I explain these four desiderata and how students complete drawing exercises to develop understanding, generate insights, and make philosophic discoveries. I begin by (...) explaining and justifying the pedagogical desiderata. I discuss the literature on drawing-to-learn and concept mapping and apply its insights to teaching philosophy. Finally, I describe my exercises on color theory, two-point perspective exercises, my modifications to concept mapping, and the use of summative drawings. (shrink)

ABSTRACTWe claim that venting can be epistemic work: if one vents to the right sort of person, knowledge can be gained about an oppressive social structure, one’s place in it, and how to repair the epistemic damage it creates. To justify this claim, we define both epistemic damage and venting, and contrast venting with related notions such as complaining and ranting. Using Code’s understanding of testimony, Dotson’s notion of a linguistic exchange, and Fricker’s distinction between testimonial and hermeneutical injustice, we (...) describe when and how venting is epistemic work. We also discuss the way venting is distinct from consciousness raising. We conclude that although one goal of venting is to repair epistemic damage for individual women, venting’s positive epistemic impact prepares women to challenge hermeneutical injustice. (shrink)

Through examples of embodied and learning-centered pedagogy, we discuss transformative learning of transgressive topics. We begin with a taxonomy of types of learning our students undergo as they resolve inconsistencies among their pre-existing beliefs and the material they confront in our course on feminist ethics and epistemology. We then discuss ways to help students maximize their learning while confronting internal inconsistencies. While we focus on feminist topics, our approach is broad enough to be relevant to anyone teaching a transgressive or (...) controversial topic. (shrink)

Walter Thorson's two articles on the legitimacy and scope of naturalism within science attempt to identify a mediating position between the reductive naturalism of thinkers like Richard Dawkins and the complete rejection of naturalism by thinkers like Phillip Johnson. Thorson rightly notes that the purely mechanistic approach to science characteristic of reductive naturalism is inadequate. Nonetheless, he argues that science still needs naturalism as a methodological or regulative principle. Thorson's methodological naturalism leaves room for teleology in nature, (...) though a teleology that falls short of full intelligent agency. (shrink)

The Nordic countries have often been regarded as ideal states with respect to their organization of society, including, among other things, their democracy, public education systems, gender equality, and strong concern for nature. From the late twentieth century onward, an increasing interest in Nordic literature, film, and design—genres where social and environmental themes have been strongly highlighted—can be noted internationally.This discourse of the Nordic societies can be considered to contain both utopian and dystopian aspects. As Kjerstin Aukrust and Cecilie (...) Weiss-Andersen show in their article on French democracy, the Nordic, understood as a utopian motif, has been a long-standing topic in modern French... (shrink)

The Monk and the Philosopher. Jean-François Revel and Matthieu Ricard. Translated by John Canti. Thorsons, London 1998. ix, 310 pp. £16.99. ISBN 0-7225-3649-6.